Five Times Grantaire Died and One Time He Was Reborn
by Buffintruder
Summary: Some loosely connected oneshots
1. Les Miserables (1982 Movie)

**I had a couple loose ideas for oneshots based off Enjolras and Grantaire's death scene that were too short to stand alone. I decided to make this into a 5+1 thing where each part would be a completely separate story that takes place in canon era but is significantly different from canon in at least one way. Each is different in mood and characterization because I wanted to play around with different interpretations of Grantaire. This first one is a bit of a downer but not all of them are (as much). It is based off the 1982 French movie because I thought the way they portrayed it was interesting.**

 **...**

The barricades are falling, just as Grantaire always knew they would. He does not revel in his accuracy, rather, he mourns it, for he would like to be wrong. He wants his friends to succeed and live, he wants their dreams to come true, he wants a republic that listens to its people, he wants everyone to have rights and for no one to be poor. It's only that, unlike everyone fighting for the barricade, he does not believe it can happen.

Soldiers storm the Corinthe, trailing corpses and destruction in their wake. Grantaire ignores it from the corner where he sits. He leans against an empty barrel, averting his eyes from the slaughter. There is no point in trying anymore, he thinks. It is too late for that. He can join in the last desperate attempts, but nothing he can do will be of any use. He cannot save any lives, nor prevent the fall of the barricades. It is easier to simply sit there, with all the same effect. He isn't harmed this way; the guardsmen pay no attention to him who does nothing.

People scream and shout and guns are fired, the noises all blurring together with the smoke and the sound of panicked footsteps. There is so much noise and movement, but Grantaire sits in a small bubble of stillness. It is impossible to block out everything happening outside of it, but he still feels set apart, as if he is a distant viewer rather than someone in the midst of everything.

He stares forlornly at his empty hands. These barricades are doomed to fail and there is nothing he can do about it. Grantaire knows that, has known it for a long time, yet the knowledge is no preparation or comfort. He is always surrounded by a bleak heaviness of pessimism that cautions him against hope in the cheeriest of times, but now it fully envelops him, suffocating him. There is no escape from this now, no happy ending, no last minute rescue, no anything.

Silence falls suddenly and without warning. Grantaire glances up and sees his friends, the core of Les Amis on the top of the stairs. A dozen soldiers aim their guns at them, waiting for some unknown signal. Before, in the turmoil, Grantaire was lost in his mind, as hazy as the fog and smoke around his body. The actions of those around him seemed far away and vague. Now, in the stillness, everything is clear and sharply real. It is over. There is nothing left. Not for him. Everything he cares about is on the floor above him, moments away from death. There's only one thing to do.

He stands up, slowly and solemnly, as if in a dream, though he knows that it is anything but. A couple paces brings him to another table where a cup of wine remains. Grantaire raises it, pausing for an instant in a silent toast, before tilting his head back and pouring it all down his throat. He unhurriedly places the cup back where it was and trudges to the staircase, taking his time. He is in no rush to die. The soldiers wait with patience, the moment too funereal to interrupt with want of speed.

As he walks, a few tears trickle down his cheek. He weeps for the loss of his friends and the loss of their dreams and the loss of his own life. He weeps for everything they never did and the utopian future that could not be. He weeps for what they left behind, all their unfinished business, all the things they would never do. He weeps and knows that only he will mourn them all as they deserve to be: as both heroes and ordinary, individual people.

Grantaire climbs the stairs faster now. There's no point in dragging this out much longer. He steps around the fallen corpses as he marches somberly, as though on the way to a guillotine. The difference, after all, is not great.

His friends stand, defiant and proud, so that even their execution will not be shameful. Their expressions hold a certain unity that comes from friends facing death as one. They lived together, and dreamed together, and fought together, and when this is finished, they will sleep together in the stars.

Grantaire joins them at the top. He is one of them, and always was, yet even now, he stands differently. His back is slumped, and his posture is one of defeat, rather than obstinacy. Not that it will matter for long. Once the bullets hit, there will be nothing left to distinguish him as separate. In death, they will all be the same.

He is dying out of cowardice, because he is too afraid of being alone. There is no good reason to die, but if there was, dying for the freedom of one's country would be an honorable one. Grantaire is not doing that.

"Fire!" Someone shouts, and the peace is shattered. Almost faster than thought, the soldiers follow the command. In the instant before death, as the bullets strike him, knocking him off his feet, Grantaire remembers a different time, from before things went so badly. A day like any other day, nothing exceptional. The wind blew strongly and everyone had to hold onto their hats to keep possession of them. But they were a group, carefree and still excited about the future. Even Grantaire was swept up in their optimism and cheer, loving them all for it. He remembers savouring that moment, knowing that it could not last forever, but that while it did he would appreciate it.

"Do not forget this," he thought to himself then. "Remember this feeling so that when all this ends, you will know that it was not worth regretting."

As the end comes, he mourns the loss, and hates the guards, and fears the future, and laments the waste of it all. But he cannot regret having his friends nor their hopes.


	2. Future Visions

**In which Grantaire sees the future in his dreams.**

 **...**

Grantaire sleeps as the world around him crumbles. He sleeps through the frantic battles and the stillness of the night. He sleeps as his friends laugh and cry and scream and die. Grantaire sleeps, and as he does, he dreams.

He dreams of the past, of guillotines and Terror, of crownless kings and forts on fire. There's a flash of black and white clothing and a crowd of people, and Grantaire hears, "... is impotent. Terror is nothing else than swift, severe, indomitable justice; it flows, then, from virtue," before the voice fades out again. He sees the fury of the mob and it's relentless, irrational power.

He dreams of the present, of a life paid for the raising of the flag, of a song sung for the last time. "Vive la France! Vive l'avenir!" he thinks he hears, and then gunshots. There are corpses with faces he knows and loves and he cannot tell if this is part of the prophetic dreams he sometimes has or a nightmare created by worry and fear and nothing else.

He feels more involved in these dreams. Instead of a viewer from a time and place far away, he is in the midst of things. The cool air makes him shiver and he can smell the gunpowder and smoke. When Prouvaire is dragged away from the barricade by a guard, Grantaire wants to help, tries to help, but a mere fragment of a mind can never physically change anything. He cries out when he sees the little boy about to be killed, and is thankful when Marius does what he cannot.

He dreams of the future, as he most often does. He sees Enjolras surrounded by soldiers poised to shoot. If there is anything Grantaire could do to save him, he would, but all he can do is silently stand by and wait for the vision to shift.

It does, taking him further away in time.

In his past, Grantaire has rarely had hopeful views of the future. He sees mostly bad things, both in his personal future and in the broader sense. His dreams are haunted with the horrors of colonization, with terrible wars fought using weapons he can't even comprehend the destructive capability of. He sees bigotry beyond understanding in a thousand different forms for every reason imaginable, and backs turned on those who need help the most. Forests are slaughtered, and human waste grows and spreads, contaminating and killing what it touches, as they take and take without concern for the consequences, and Grantaire never truly cared for nature, but this is beyond horrific.

The outline of the future that these visions present to him leaves him with little hope for progressive change. Not only does he see so many of examples of the awful things people do later on, he sees that as a whole, humanity does not improve. They have the same flaws, and make the same mistakes, only they have greater technology to do even more damage.

But these dreams, at the barricades, are different. In visions Grantaire had before, he saw the fall of the second French republic; he now sees the rise of the third republic, and the stay of the fifth. A crowd of people carrying rainbow flags celebrate, and people, rich and poor and men and women and white and black and thousands of variations of people outside of and between those categories vote for people who aren't all rich white men. He sees and hears and feels a hundred other visions that individually, he can't always understand, but all together, he gets a different picture of the future.

As the world around him is filled with chaos and death, his dreams are pleasant and inspiring, filled with all the way things _will_ get better. Things that Grantaire hadn't even known needed improving become improved.

Enjolras makes more sense now, he thinks. Grantaire had always been certain of the future's bleakness. His visions have over and over again, proven themselves to be true in the short term. Why would they not be so in the long term? Why would what comes next be anything but what his dreams showed?

Only now he sees that he was not shown everything. He saw the truth perhaps, but not all of it. Because despite the countless horrors and tragedies so terrible and abundant that no other reaction but cold numbness can be felt, progress beyond imagination flourishes alongside them. Not instantaneously, of course. There are slips and backtracking, and it is a long, slow journey, but it happens.

He believes in these most recent glimpses as much as he does all the others he has had. It's frustrating to know that he'd been fooled so easily, that he had assumed he saw all there was to see, that he never wondered if there was a whole other side to the future. Until he met them, his visions never showed his friends, the lights of his life, after all. This was hardly the first time they kept the best things from him. But in his sleep, thoughts and emotions are hard to hold onto, and the irritation passes too.

But the realization of hope is exhilarating, and that stays with him. Grantaire doesn't see the whole future, doesn't know if there's ever a time where all the problems are solved (though he's not that much of an optimist), but the lack of knowledge makes it all the more alluring. At this moment, he would fight and die and do anything to make that better time a bit more possible. He expects that it won't last after he wakes up. Dreams distort and exaggerate feelings, but caught up in the surge of unfamiliar emotion, he can't bring himself to care. He will wake up and fight with his friends on the barricade, he decides. And maybe he could make something a little bit better.

But when he wakes up, reality slaps him in the face. He remembers now, that _all_ of his visions are right. The barricades have haunted his dreams for a long time now, and he knows that there was not a single one that showed him involved in anything, only sleeping as the fight goes on by, right up until the end. Perhaps they never showed him the full story, but they showed him enough of this one that there is no room for him to squeeze in between what he saw.

The view that greets him when he opens his eyes is just like his dreams. Or, rather, his nightmares. Like his worst ones, where he wakes up sobbing and all the drink in the world could not drown out the shaken hollowness in his heart.

With barely a glance, he knows what is happening and what has already happened. It is daylight, and the sun is shining too cheerfully over this place of fallen heroes and crushed ideals. It is daylight, which means that the night and dawn have passed, that Bahorel has been felled, that Jehan has died alone in the dark, that the small urchin by the name of Gavroche has sung his final song, that the rest of his friends are likely all dead, or soon will be. It is daylight, and it is nearly silent, and Enjolras is about to be shot.

This is a scene Grantaire has seen a hundred times. Never has he seen the ending of it, but it isn't hard to guess. There are a dozen soldiers, and no way to fight back, no way to escape. And even if there is, there's more soldiers outside this room, and more elsewhere in this country, and the people are not going to fight back, not now anyway.

But his visions don't show the end, and Grantaire knows that the picture they paint has never been complete. Maybe the future isn't decided, or maybe the only way it could be finished properly is to not show him. Either way, he has a choice. It's not a good one, but he has a say in how this story ends.

He can stay where he is. The soldiers might not notice him. They haven't yet. But that seems too cowardly an act to do at the grave of his beloved friends. He doesn't think it will work, nor does he know what he would do afterwards; his visions have shown him nothing about himself after the barricades. (He has always known that he would die here, at the barricades, one way or another.)

He can go out and fight them, though he doesn't think there would be much point to it. There are too many of them for fighting to have any real effect. Nothing would change, and he doesn't necessarily want to try to kill people who might be conscripted into this for the sake of killing. They all have lives of their own, family probably, and friends. It's possible they think the king is someone worth dying for, and it's possible they have no choice. Grantaire hates them for killing his friends, but he cannot fully villainize them. If killing them would mean anything good, Grantaire gladly would, but all it would bring is maybe another minute of life for himself.

That leaves him with one option. It's not something he ever thought he would do. Enjolras would, of course, any one of Les Amis, absolutely, but he has always known that he was not truly one of them. But something has changed within Grantaire. The hope and inspiration from his new visions, though dampened by reality, have not vanished. If there is ever a time where he would stand up for an ideal and calmly face death, it is now. He hungers for that better future he saw, and it hurts more than anything that all of his friends, who worked so hard to push the world down that path, will not be able to see it or even know it exists. Frustration drives him, as much as anything else, adding recklessness beyond caring. He has to make a point, and there is one way to do it.

Grantaire doesn't want to die. It's not that he's never wondered if the world would be better off without him or that he's never thought things might be so much easier if he stopped existing. Because he does. But when it comes down to it, he finds that it is not so simple to let go of life. Even now, he is terrified of the thought of standing up, revealing himself to be alive, and surrendering himself to the nonexistent mercy of the National Guard. Still, there is too much that could be gained if he did.

Enjolras will approve, will see that there is more to Grantaire than what he had seen before. But that's not why Grantaire is choosing this option. It's a nice side effect, but not the cause.

He does not know, or perhaps, it is that he cannot explain even to himself, the true reason for his decision. It's that he wants to show himself, show the world, that he _can_ have belief and strength, but that is not quite it. He will do anything to bring that future he's caught glimpses of, though he knows it will happen with or without his influence. Maybe he wants to honor his recently deceased friends, and the cause they killed and died for.

But thinking of why he is doing what he is going to do is only stalling for the actual action, and Grantaire knows it. There's a limited time before it's too late to act. It has to be now. The sergeant is questioning Enjolras, but by his tone, it is clear that the conversation will soon be over.

Grantaire rises, and before he can think better of his course of action, he proclaims, "Long live the Republic!" This is said with absolute certainty because though this rebellion will not give birth to a republic, another one will, and eventually, it will even have some amount of justice and stability. And that republic will last for a very long time. He glances at Enjolras who looks at him proudly.

There's so many things he wants to say, thoughts clouding up his mind, nearly spilling over through his mouth. Grantaire knows how to ramble, if nothing else, but this is not the occasion for blathering on. At the verge of death, silence is the most powerful. Still, he cannot let his revelation go unheard. It just has to be impactful and to the point, or else the meaning will be lost. He speaks to Enjolras instead of the guards. Talking to them would be too much like a speech, and pressure from that would stop his mouth as effectively as any bullet.

"I think I understand now, your passion and hope," he says, softly, to make it more personal. It is still loud enough that it can be heard by everyone in the silence of the room. The guards exchange uncertain looks but let him continue. "I know now that the people will rise again, in the middle of February, 1848. They will create a republic that lasts for four years and then falls, but years after that, they will create another, and from that point on, no king nor emperor shall ever rule over France again."

Everyone is staring at him, wondering why these are the words he chooses to use in what are the last moments of his life, why they are so strangely specific. But that doesn't matter much. His embarrassment will only last a bit longer. Grantaire hopes they will remember his words, and when they see that he is right with unnerving accuracy, they will believe in the rest of what he says too. "I know there will come days for this country where all adults can vote, regardless of gender or color, and education is mandatory and free for all, where the government will not let most of its people starve and tax money is used to cheapen health expenses, and I know that these days are not as far away as I had thought before."

"Impossible," a soldier mutters, rolling his eyes and preparing to shoot. The one next to him seems more interested in Grantaire's words and quietly pushes down the first soldier's gun, giving him a glare that demanded patience.

"All those things, and solutions to problems beyond our dreams, are in the future. And that is worth dying for. So that is what I am doing. For liberty, equality, and fraternity."

Enjolras looks confused, not understanding his words (though that is not something new), but he does not say anything.

His little speech finished, Grantaire turns to the National Guards. "Finish us both with one blow." He glances back at Enjolras, suddenly realizing that he has been intruding on what should have been a grand, martyric moment for Enjolras. "...If you permit it?"

There is no verbal response, but Enjolras smiles and takes his hand, and that is all that is needed. He understands that Enjolras is happy for Grantaire to have risen with hope and belief.

He knows it is too late to change the future, and his words will not dramatically improve anything, but there is so little he has not seen of what will come. There are so many details he can change, and if what he said erased one bad deed or created one good one, it was not entirely worthless. The outline is set in stone for him, up to a certain point, but beyond that and in the spaces between, anything can happen.

And so Grantaire is killed, but with hope and purpose.


	3. American Gods au

_Belief is all it takes to create a god._

 **...**

 **This is based off of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Reading it isn't necessary to understand this because everything is explained, but I took the explanations about how belief and godhood works from there. I thought it would make an interesting story, but how Grantaire acts and feels towards Enjolras isn't supposed to be healthy.**

 **...**

Gods, Grantaire was taught, are human constructs. This does not mean that they are any less real. Indeed, Grantaire has encountered more than a few himself. They are almost exactly as humans imagined them to be, just as deadly, as beautiful, as strong. But although people usually believe their gods to be far more powerful than themselves, Grantaire knows that this is only true to a certain extent. Gods have powers that vary from god to god and pantheon to pantheon, but all are dependent on mortals, since they are created and sustained by belief and sacrifice. Without worship, their power wanes. And if they are ever fully forgotten, they die.

All gods come from somewhere, whether from made up stories, or inanimate objects, or ideas personified, or real people that are so legendary they become something more than human.

In one of his travels east, Grantaire meets Antinous, one of the human-turned-gods. Antinous was the lover of Emperor Hadrian of Rome, who deified him after his death. Few still worship him as they did in the times of Hadrian, but stories of Antinous are still passed around, and that is enough to keep him alive.

From him, Grantaire learns much more about how divinity works, though he already knew the basics. He finds that knowing this much detail about the secret workings of the gods, he cannot believe in them. It is an irony that he is amused by, that he believes that every god and mythical being exists, yet he believes _in_ none of them. Grantaire was never the most hopeful or devout person, but since then, all he can do is doubt.

He cannot believe in a utopian future for humanity. Gods are reflections of the humans that dreamed them up, as selfish and petty and corrupt as humans are, even if they often hide it better. The power to help the people comes entirely from the people, even if indirectly. And Grantaire knows people well enough to know that there is no hope of them saving themselves. So he has no faith in the future of humanity, nor their ideals, and especially not the people who believe in them, as he thinks them to be fools at best and cunning seekers of power at worst.

Except one. There is one thing Grantaire believes in, though he never connects it to what he knows of gods and that kind of belief. After all, despite his jokes and metaphors, he does not actually think Enjolras to be a god, and he does not worship him as one. Enjolras is nothing like any god Grantaire has met. Gods are made by people, from their imagination and expectations of behaviour, and Enjolras is nothing like any human.

He is better than the best of both gods and people. If there is anyone who can bring true progress and enlightenment, it will be him. He is completely sincere and devoted about his cause and his principles, unlike many. All these things Grantaire believes with every part of him that can believe at all.

Still, Grantaire worries for Enjolras, because though he believes all of those things, he does not trust the populace to rise up with him, nor does he trust the government to not squash any uprising Enjolras participates in. One human, no matter how good, can never change a civilization alone. Even with a few followers.

Right before the planned revolt, Grantaire prays, something he has never really done before. He prays to Victoria and Mars, the Roman gods of victory and war; to Cathubodua, a Celtic goddess of war and guider of heroes (though her lands are a little east and Grantaire isn't sure if she is close enough to Paris to hear him); to the Christian God; to Patria, often known as Marianne, a newer French goddess of liberty and revolution; to every other god from nearby that he can think of. Belief is power and prayers are a symbol of that. In times like these, where so few believe in pagan gods, that kind of power is precious, and Grantaire hopes that it means the gods (at least some of them) will be willing to give his friends a little help. Grantaire wonders if the prayers still count if he doesn't believe the gods actually can or will intervene.

It doesn't hurt to be safe, he figures. It feels better than doing nothing at all.

Grantaire dreams, while he sleeps at the barricades. When he wakes, it is almost too late. All that is left of his dream is a blur of blue, white, and red, of an intimidating woman, of revolution, and divinity, and fog lifting. Still, something in his mind is clearer than it has ever been. He understands his situation at a glance: the barricades have fallen, the soldiers have taken over, they must have missed him or mistaken him for one of the dead bodies, his friends are likely dead, and Enjolras is about to be executed.

But there is something else too, lingering in the remains of his dream. Grantaire focuses on it, gently fanning the spark of a notion into a coherent thought, and he suddenly understands.

There isn't exactly one certain kind of belief that creates gods. People don't worship their demons and death gods and trickster gods and ruler gods and fertility gods all in the same way. Not every belief counts though, or every legend and charismatic leader would be divine.

What gods need, purely and simply is the belief that they are something more than human. That can manifest in many forms, whether fear or awe or respect or love. It takes a certain amount of power and people for a god to be created, and they can be strengthened by actions, such as sacrifices or rituals or monuments or great deeds done in their name. And then they must be sustained by more belief, more stories, or they fade away. It takes less to preserve them than it does to create them.

He always believed in Enjolras, and though he never thought of Enjolras as a god, in the end, it doesn't matter much. The distinctions between 'god' and 'above all living things' is not so different, when it comes to belief.

Grantaire stands up. "Wait," he says. Many soldiers startle, their attention towards the front breaking. Enjolras stares at him and Grantaire imagines that he wants to say 'What are you doing Grantaire? Do not throws your life away for what you do not believe in.'

But whatever imaginary Enjolras thinks, Grantaire _will_ be dying for something he believes in. Pushing the chair out of his path, Grantaire walks slowly around the soldiers, not wanting to disturb the solemn and eerie stillness, and places himself between them and Enjolras. "Shoot me first," he says.

After a moment of uncertainty, one of the soldiers, the leading one, commands, "Do as he asks." The rest of them comply and many point their guns towards Grantaire rather than Enjolras.

"I dedicate this death to the Cause, the Republic, and Enjolras," he say, looking back to horrified and bewildered man so the guards can understand who he is talking about. Grantaire sees that all three are one and the same now and he believes in them with an intensity he never thought he had.

It is impossible for one person, even by giving the most power possible by willingly and knowingly surrendering their life, to create a god out of another person. But if Grantaire is right, he will not be the only person. His belief and his sacrifice, marked by those words, will only push everything over the edge, and Enjolras into godhood. And more importantly, immortality.

If this works, Enjolras won't die. He might hate divinity, with all the power gods have over humans and the lack of regulations on them, but it wasn't like those problems didn't exist before. Enjolras would be in the best possible position to fix them, and all the other issues he wanted to correct before his ascension would be easier to change. This way, he can live and so can his energy and ideals, because Grantaire knows that there is nothing Enjolras wouldn't sacrifice to see his utopian future become reality, and this way he can.

Lots of people believe in Enjolras. Maybe not precisely as a god, (even Grantaire hadn't before) but in the awed way that anyone who listens to the ethereal man weave stirring words of revolution might. Or the way that the rebels at this barricade admire their leader, strong and impassioned as he is, and fight with his words in their heart.

The people of Paris will remember him too, with any luck. There are already stories, spread in the dark, drunken corners of the underground resistance, of an angel by the name of Enjolras sent to herald a brighter age. (Grantaire may have accidentally started them on some of his lonelier nights.)

The soldiers here, who are about to execute him, will not forget him either. In their memories, the image of a golden-haired man, worn from a day and night of fighting, yet made no less proud and defiant because of that, untouched by bullets and blades, illuminated by the rising sun, this picture will remain. Some will speak of it, inspired by his calm acceptance of death and his godly countenance. They will remember that Grantaire called him Enjolras, and so his name will live on in legends. Even the most logical, those who do not believe in anything not proven by science will think of him and how he fought. Not everyone will remember with admiration, but hate can be just as powerful to keep alive or create a god.

Bullets strike and Grantaire thinks he sees a beam of ethereal light strike Enjolras from an angle that makes no sense, given the position of the window. Perhaps it is a dying man's hallucination. Or maybe, it's a sign of divinity, either a god intervening, or a god being born.

Grantaire wishes he could do something more to spread the story, to ensure it takes root and grows, but it is too late now. All he can do now is die. And so, in a way that befits the creation of a god of the fight for liberty and a better future, Grantaire dies, full of the kind of hope and love that is not soft, but fierce.


	4. Grantaire Saves the Barricade

**Grantaire finds a way to save almost everyone at the barricade. Some trans!Enjolras and some E/R**

...

There is only silence and darkness when Grantaire wakes up. This is so different from the bustle and energy from when he fell asleep that it disorientates him for a moment. But he is in the same place, only time has passed. Listening closer now, Grantaire realizes that it is not completely quiet, but from this empty room, all the faint sounds of the night are muffled and distant.

He pushes himself out of the chair with a small groan; his body has not moved since some time that afternoon and is now rather stiff. There is no way of telling what time it is, but the stillness seems characteristic of the hours just before dawn. That means he has been asleep for close to twelve hours, though with the lack of rest he could get in the days before because of his stress, Grantaire is not surprised.

Trying not to make the floorboards creak, he makes his way across the room to the window. The barricades are still standing, much higher than the last time he saw them. A few people keep watch, illuminated by lanterns. Many others sit, in groups or alone, likely too tense to sleep. Grantaire sees few familiar faces, only Courfeyrac and another student he is familiar with by sight but not name. The others must be inside on the floor beneath him or are hidden by the shadows of the buildings. Or dead. He wonders how many still live. Grantaire hadn't meant to sleep so long and miss as much as he did, though he still has no idea how much that is. If there's anyone awake, Grantaire could learn some information from them, maybe, so he goes down, stepping lightly, so as not to disturb anyone.

The first person he recognizes is Joly, leaning on the shoulder of a sleeping Bossuet. The former is staring off into nothing, not quite asleep, but not fully conscious either. Joly doesn't notice Grantaire until he whispers his name.

"Joly! Joly!"

He blinks a few times, startled from his dozing. "Grantaire? You're awake?"

"Yes. I didn't mean to miss so much," he says in apology.

"The fight is not over yet," Joly says. "You didn't miss everything."

"I suppose not." There's something Grantaire needs to bring up but he doesn't know how Joly will take it, if he will refuse or shut the idea down completely. And he knows however disbelieving and unwilling as Joly will be, it won't be half of what some of the rest of Les Amis will be. But there isn't really any choice. "Look, I know a way out of here."

"What?" Joly says, rubbing his eyes sleepily, as if hoping that will clear everything up. "You mean, other than the streets? It's not hard to walk on them out of this place, if that's what you want."

"Yes, and into the soldier-infested city? If there's any evidence that you were here, at the barricades, you would be arrested or shot."

"You're not talking about leaving just the barricades," Joly realizes, suddenly more awake. "You're talking about Paris. France, even?"

"Away from anywhere dangerous," he says, though there is no place that is truly safe from everything. They'll be safe from their government at least.

"We can't just leave."

"This fight isn't going to get any better," Grantaire argues. "It's not like 1830 now. There's less people supporting you. Change has happened too soon, with the revolution so recent. Many people are satisfied enough, and others want to wait and see how things will be."

"This isn't the time to argue about this," Joly says with a sigh. "What _is_ your plan to leave 'anywhere dangerous' that I, presumably, don't already know about?"

"I can't tell you now." Grantaire's way sounds too impossible to casually toss out and offering proof wouldn't be very convenient at that moment. Joly is a man of science. He will not believe it without proof. "But all of us can leave by it."

"Then, with no offence intended, how do you expect us to follow you?" he asks curiously.

"I don't really. Especially not now. But I was hoping that when things worsen, you could talk to the leader of the barricade, Enjolras, I assume, and there would be another option for all of us to take."

"And Marius."

"What?" The seemingly irrelevant response confuses Grantaire, who expected a kind but firm refusal.

"Marius is also a leader."

"That booby? Leader? I didn't even know he was here."

"It was quite incredible. He showed up at the last minute and saved Courfeyrac and Gavroche. Enjolras named him the leader, though we all know that Enjolras isn't not a leader, if you catch my meaning."

"I do," Grantaire says, and he does. Enjolras is like that. Even when he relegates duties to others, people look up to him, and can't ignore the air of authority he carries. When he doesn't step up to take positions of power, it feels as if he is merely letting others do so. "I hate to ask this, but there is no better way of phrasing it, and I can't not know. How... how many of us have died?"

"Oh," Joly says, sobering as he remembers. "Quite a few, though many I did not know. From our group, Bahorel and Prouvaire."

Grantaire can't believe it. He didn't want anyone to die, but knowing that they might not all survive, he never imagined that those two would be the first. Bahorel was so strong, in both spirit and body. He was so full of life that killing him seems like toppling a mountain. And Jehan was soft and delicate, yet had a core of fire and steel. Who could want to hurt Prouvaire? Grantaire almost asks this, but he doesn't want to know the details. They can't change anything.

Grantaire slides down the wall to sit next to Joly. Thankfully, Joly doesn't seem to expect him to say anything, so they sit there in silence.

It doesn't take long for Joly to doze off, but Grantaire has been sleeping for a long time, and though he is still a little bleary, he is too awake to fall asleep again. So, with nothing to distract him from his thoughts, he waits for dawn.

The barricade comes to life a little before the sun rises. Unlike what Grantaire remembers from the day before, there is less cheer and more nervous tension. People plan, talking about when the soldiers will come back, and what to do when they arrive. Many work on building the barricades higher and stronger. As the sky lightens, the mood darkens. They become more expectant, though still, no one comes.

Grantaire waits for an opportunity to suggest his ideas. While there are discussions in small groups, no one is talking to everyone at once, and Grantaire thinks that that would be his best chance to say something, so everyone can hear at the same time. Less repetition that way.

When Enjolras points out the four National Guard uniforms and encourages people to use them to escape, Grantaire prepares to speak out. However, it's not until Combeferre talks about family and responsibility, convincing people that leaving and surviving is not necessarily bad, that Grantaire says anything.

"You are hardly free of family yourself, Combeferre," he says. The people who know him well look at him with surprise; though he frequently disagrees and comments on others' speeches, he has never interrupted someone to do so. He generally prefers to mutter commentary to those nearby, quietly enough to be ignored by the speaker, or to rant to any willing listener afterwards.

"Grantaire..." Enjolras says warningly.

"In fact," he continues, ignoring him, "I don't think that there is anyone here that has no one relying on them, no one to miss them if they die, no potential in their lives that would be lost."

"That is true," Enjolras says, "But there are only four uniforms."

"I know a way where everyone can leave." Grantaire can feel the glare of Enjolras's stare. It's wonderful and exhilarating and terrifying. He thinks he should have done this before, to get Enjolras's attention. He understands why he hasn't. The way everyone is paying attention to what he is saying makes him want to hide away forever. Even though he normally wants people to listen to him, the pressure of _this_ way of listening is crushing.

"How?" Enjolras demands suspiciously.

Grantaire wonders whether it will help his argument to merely hint at his method until it comes time to use it, but he decides against it. He hardly has a reputation for trustworthiness. Nobody would believe him unless he proved it. And his method is too unbelievable for a crowd to simply believe it regardless of who is speaking.

"Soldiers surround this barricade and patrol the streets around Paris," Enjolras says. "With our clothes, rumpled and covered with gunpowder as they are, we would attract suspicion and be caught, especially if we move in large numbers. And we cannot fly, and digging a tunnel would be impractical. We cannot go over or under or through or around."

"My path does not go in any of those directions," Grantaire says. "Let me show you, and you will see that I am neither a liar nor a fool."

His body thrums with anxiety. He hates all the attention on him as he is about to reveal something he has been taught all his life to hide. But even more so, Grantaire is scared that they will see his method but decide to stay and die anyway. This is his last and only hope. He walks to the nearest door, that of the Corinthe. No one is inside but the heavily injured and the police spy that Joly had pointed out to him earlier.

Everybody is watching him, and he can feel their judgement and doubt pressing down on him. He pushes the door firmly shut and taps it twice. When he opens it again, it leads not to the inside of the restaurant, but to a stretch of countryside just a little outside of Paris. There are a few questions and many sounds of disbelief and shock but not much else, and for that Grantaire is grateful. In some of his nightmares, he reveals his ability and the only thing his friends express are anger and betrayal. But there are no cries for a witchhunt, no accusations of demonic magic.

"This can be the way out, for anybody who is willing to go," he says, and it is not quite as dramatic as he imagined it would be right before he said it.

"But should we all go?" Joly asks doubtfully, which is not quite the support Grantaire had hoped of him. "A few men gone would make little difference to the fight, and this method could save a far greater number of lives than the uniforms, yet with all of us gone, it would certainly change things."

"This barricade, with its fifty or so defendants, cannot achieve our goals of liberty and a republic. We have little support from outside; we are alone," Bossuet argues back immediately.

Grantaire wonders if it was planned; Joly and Bossuet hardly ever argue about anything, and even then, only on the most trivial of things. If so, it would be quite helpful, as all arguments against his plan could be brought up and countered from a more reliable source than himself.

"I could not say there is much we can do at the moment, with our numbers," Bossuet continues.

"But it would be an act of inspiration. Our deaths would not go ignored and unnoticed, and this could spark revolution in others."

"People have already died," Bossuet says. "And if the timing is right, you cannot say that our mysterious disappearance would not draw attention."

"Especially if there are rumours spread around that we are still alive, waiting for another chance to strike back," Courfeyrac says enthusiastically.

"This could work, if we planned carefully," Combeferre muses. "The National Guard must see us before we vanish, or else it would lose much of its effects because they would assume that there was less of us than they expected or that we fled in the night."

"Perhaps we let the barricades fall," someone suggests, though Grantaire does not recognize the voice.

Someone else starts to protest, but is quickly cut off by the first speaker. "If we weaken the barricade from this side, and have only a few people left here to guard it, the soldiers would over take it quickly. Then, those people can retreat. We must cover the door with a cloth, to hide what is on the other side. The soldiers, seeing us flee through the door, will assume that we are inside the Corinthe, and that the rest of us are hiding there too. But when they open the door, there will be no one there. That should be unnatural enough to spark several stories."

The people at the barricade are quiet for a moment, considering it, before someone shouts out, "That actor's flair for drama is finally good for something!"

The speaker laughs good-naturedly. "I have no good retort, my friend, for what you say is true."

"Your... talent, can it work with that plan?" Combeferre asks Grantaire.

"Yes," he says, feeling surprised at how easily everyone is taking this. It has scarcely been a minute since he revealed himself, yet people are already over their shock and making plans. But there is something unreal about this barricade, with too much fear for the mind to reasonably comprehend, and so little sleep, and he thinks that if they learned about it under more normal circumstances, things would not be so calm. "Once I close the door, it leads only where it always has. And I can transport people back to their homes, once it is safe and convenient, if I have an address."

"Are we in agreement on this plan, then?" Enjolras asks. A vote of raised hands is taken, and the plan is agreed upon by a large majority.

"Then the only question that remains is who will hold the barricade while the rest of us leave," a laborer that looks vaguely familiar says.

A few volunteer immediately, but are argued with by friends who remind them of the risk and of their children or other close loved ones, or of their youth and the potential that could be lost.

"I shall hold the door, while everyone who remains passes," Grantaire announces, and nobody argues with him, though he is not sure if it is because they see him as an authoritative figure, or because they know he has little to lose. He steps back from the debates, as people argue over who and how many are necessary to hold the barricade.

Gavroche gets into a heated argument with Enjolras and Combeferre, who will not allow him to stay. Gavroche is relentless, filled with endless energy and determination, yet even he is no match for the combined logic and passion of Combeferre and Enjolras. Others concerning his friends, such as Feuilly trying to tell Joly and Bossuet to go, are more subdued. Grantaire wants all of them to leave immediately, but he knows he could never convince them otherwise. He is lucky they all agreed to try to leave at all.

A few people volunteer to help carry all of the injured out of the barricade, while others say that they will search for a cloth big enough to cover the door. The fate of the police spy is debated, and it is eventually decided that he must be executed, for that was his intended fate, and if he overheard any of their plans it is important that he cannot tell anyone. A white-haired man that Grantaire doesn't recognize at all or remember seeing earlier on the barricades offers to do it.

In the end, when everything is decided, about half end up leaving immediately. Grantaire sees more of his friends in the staying group than he would like, but he is also grateful that they agreed to escape at all.

When Enjolras says that he will stay behind, to be the last one through the door, no one argues, but when everyone goes their separate ways, Grantaire follows him.

"Don't do that," he says, and realizes it might be too vague only after it is said. "Purposefully go through last, I mean."

"I have to. I am acting as one of the leaders here," Enjolras says. "It is my responsibility to ensure that everyone comes safely through."

"I can do that instead. I _am_ doing that."

"You have no reason to. _You_ don't have to," Enjolras argues. "I have far more cause to stay than you."

" _I_ have to close the door, or else it will not lead to the inside of the Corinthe when the soldiers open it again," Grantaire lies, hoping that Enjolras won't suggest that he stay on the other side and close the door from there.

He doesn't notice, or perhaps he doesn't care to persuade Grantaire against it, but he doesn't back down either. "Then we'll walk through together."

Grantaire can't deny that at any other time, 'together' would sound tempting, but when Enjolras's life could be at stake, he is unwilling to back down. Coming through last puts him in the best view of the bullets and leaves him out the longest. It is the most dangerous position, and of all people, Grantaire doesn't think it should be Enjolras to be in it. He voices this.

Enjolras narrows his eyes at him. "Why is that? Do you not think I'm not strong enough?"

For a moment, Grantaire stares at him, bewildered. "Why on Earth would you think I think that?"

"Don't pretend. You know me from _Before_."

"What?"

"You think me a woman!"

And then the pieces connect and Grantaire understands.

Nine years before, Grantaire had met the spirited child of a rich family, the daughter, he had assumed. A few years after that, he saw Enjolras again, dressed as a man and giving speeches for the freedom of the country. Once Enjolras recognized Grantaire, he was frantic to silence him, but Grantaire had never any inclination to reveal Enjolras's past.

Grantaire thought that Enjolras eventually came to trust him, but didn't know that during that whole time, he thought Grantaire saw him as a woman, or somehow weaker because of how he was born.

Pushing away the memories, Grantaire focuses back on the present. "That has nothing to do with this. I have never doubted your strength, Enjolras, nor that you were anything other than what you say you are." Because Grantaire has met many different people, and he knows there are girls who dress as men for the power and freedom it gives them, but at heart, they are still women. But then there are those who carry their masculine clothes and posture as more than a disguise, as something closer to the truth. And though he doesn't presume to guess which is which for every such person he meets, Grantaire knows that Enjolras falls more into the latter. (" _I_ am _a man, understand?"_ he remembers Enjolras saying while trying to convince Grantaire not to tell anyone his secret. And there was the way he flinched when Grantaire called him 'Mademoiselle' when they first met. Grantaire is nearly certain Enjolras is not a woman.) "You are braver and fiercer than most men could hope to be."

"Then what is this about?" Enjolras says, not quite believing him, but not disbelieving him either.

"You shouldn't throw your life away. And I know that you think dying for the Republic isn't a waste, and this is not the best time to argue that, but it isn't necessary. You're not the captain of this barricade; you don't have to go down with it. If I'm the last through that door, and that gets me shot, no one will say that much was lost, but if it's you, the Republic and your cause has lost an important leader and speaker."

"After learning of your powers, you can hardly say we think that you are useless to us, in the most practical sense," Enjolras says. Grantaire had briefly forgotten about that. "And even still, you would not be unmissed."

"Would _you_ miss me?" Grantaire challenges.

"Of course," he replies immediately, glaring. "You are a hypocrite. You cannot talk to me of risking my life, when you are doing the same. Though perhaps, I should not be surprised. You always speak of how awful the world is, yet constantly refuse to do anything that might be of help."

"I'm helping you now, aren't I?" Sometimes, Enjolras seems to forget that revolution is not the only way of bettering the world, Grantaire thinks. Because though Grantaire does very little for broader concepts like the Republic or equal rights, he does like to think that he tries improving the world in other, smaller ways.

"Would you even be here, if we didn't build the barricades around you?"

He would, without a doubt, but only because he has nowhere else to be than with his friends, who are his life. It would be impossible to leave them to their deaths. Yet, he cannot claim Revolution-related reasons for either staying or helping. They were both for the sake of all of his friends. "I was there at the last Revolution, was I not? I am not asking you to leave the barricades now. I only ask that you give yourself an equal chance of survival. Aren't you all about that? Equality?"

"Not in every single possible sense, Grantaire."

Grantaire isn't going to win this argument. He never does when Enjolras has his mind set, and he can feel all of his points sliding off. "I just don't want you to die," he says, trying not to plead.

"I'm not trying to," Enjolras says, and his voice has lost some of its hardness.

"You are hardly trying to live, either," Grantaire says stubbornly.

"My life is not so important. If giving it up can help anybody, then so be it." He says it so matter-of-factly, as if explaining something that should be obvious, that Grantaire wants to scream because it isn't Grantaire who needs something to be explained to him. "I'd prefer to live, but that is out of my control, and I will not hide away."

"But-" Grantaire stops. The thought of Enjolras dying and thinking himself so unimportant makes him want to cry, but there are times where no words can possibly change a person's mind. "Just promise me you'll try to survive."

"I promise," Enjolras says, a little bemused. "I don't understand why you care so much."

"I'm _in love_ with you," he blurts, because surely Enjolras already knew? And this could very well be his last chance to say it, while Enjolras is still alive to hear it, and those feelings had been so much for so long, building up and devouring, and he can't take it anymore. He doesn't know how he wouldn't explode if he loses his chance to ever tell him.

Enjolras stares at him for a long time. Grantaire's heart hammers away, but he can't focus on it, lost as he is in his panic. _Why did I say that? I could have lived if it went unsaid, really, I could have. Why did I think this was a good idea? And that silence, what does it mean? Why is he staring? What is Enjolras thinking?_

"They're coming!" a lookout shouts, from the other side of the barricade. "The soldiers are coming!"

Enjolras jumps up, not looking at Grantaire anymore. The tension is unbearable, but he doesn't know how to ask for a response. There's no time.

"Get to your places!" Enjolras says. Then louder, so maybe the soldiers coming towards them can hear him over the barricade and all the background noise, "Quick! Hide!" He makes a face as he says those words, and Grantaire imagines that it pains him to give an order to retreat, to sneak around and hide so cowardly in a battle. But he holds the lives of the people there far over honor. Grantaire wonders if something has changed in Enjolras at the barricades, if this is something Enjolras would have done even two days ago.

The door is still open to that distant countryside village, and those who have not been chosen to stay, and have not yet gone, rush through. Most have already gone through, carrying the heavily injured with them. Gavroche, he notices, has made no move to go through, despite his earlier (reluctant) agreement to do so.

"Enjolras—" Grantaire says.

"Later," Enjolras responds, lifting his gun in preparation for the fight. Grantaire isn't sure whether that word is supposed to fill him with hope or dread. He hopes that there is a later. "Go," Enjolras orders, pushing him towards the restaurant. The look he gives Grantaire is gentle, maybe, but it is too quick to be certain.

Still dazed by his confusion and terror, Grantaire makes his way to the entrance of the Corinthe. Everybody with the intention of going through has gone, so he pushes the door almost closed and stands in front. He isn't quite running away, but neither is he in the front, risking his life to fight. It's a good summary of his role in Les Amis activities, he thinks. Here he is, holding open a door for people who are capable of opening it by themselves, waiting in the back while others fight. He supports them, but it is quiet and barely noticeable.

The barricades don't take long to collapse. Those fighting fall back. A couple escape through the door that Grantaire guards, but most are still fighting. Grantaire sees a few spasm and drop, as bullets hit them. Some get up, dragging themselves away from more dangerous places. Others do not. None are his friends, that he can see, and for that he is grateful, though he knows that it is not over yet.

This battle is less chaotic and bloody than he had thought it would be. The National Guard know that they have the rebels cornered and trapped, and they are not so desperate to kill quite yet.

"Retreat!" Enjolras calls out, and suddenly everyone is rushing towards the door. Grantaire holds open the curtain, in a way so that they can get through, but hopefully, the soldiers cannot see the green hill beyond it.

Many pass quickly by. Feuilly has been shot and limps to exit, supported by Courfeyrac. They wait for others, faster and less injured, to go in before they do, so they do not slow anyone from their escape. Grantaire almost shouts at them to just go through. The longer they stay out here, the more chance they have of being hurt. They finally do, when there's a pause in the rebels coming.

Enjolras is still out there. He is with the few people covering the backs of those fleeing, which is a great and self-sacrificing position to be in, but Grantaire wants for Enjolras to not be in it. It is terrifying, watching him barely miss getting killed, time and time again, only luck with a bit of good reflexes and instincts keeping him alive.

When Enjolras finally gets to him, everybody else is already on the other side. He pauses just a moment, but realizing that it wasn't the best time to get into an argument over who should go through last, Enjolras crosses the frame, and Grantaire breathes a sigh of relief.

He steps around the edge of the door, which is held just open enough for him to slip through. A blast of pain rackets his body, and he cannot think of anything else. Unable to support himself, his legs give out. He must have been shot, he thinks dimly.

"Grantaire!" Enjolras cries, and reaches a hand to pull him through, but Grantaire barely registers the movement. His thoughts are covered up by agony.

But the door. Something important about the door. It's open still and Grantaire can see where a wooden door frame separates the rough dirt of a street that has had its cobblestone ripped out from the long field grass. The door. It has to be closed. With almost no energy left, Grantaire falls on the door, using his weight to push it closed. There's barely enough consciousness left in his mind for Grantaire to think anything, but there is a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, of a question left unanswered.

Though no longer aware of it, Grantaire is kicked out of the way by soldiers who open the door to find an empty restaurant.

When the last of his life leaves him, his only feelings are relief and disappointment.


	5. Flashback

**Originally, this was going to be a flashback in the last chapter where Grantaire remembers his first meetings with Enjolras. However, it ended up being longer than four of the six chapters and transitioned badly into and out of the main story so I put it in a separate chapter. There is some misgendering of Enjolras, since Grantaire doesn't know Enjolras is trans at that point.**

...

The first time Grantaire met Enjolras was nearly nine years ago.

Grantaire was almost eighteen and had just ran away from home, using his power to move from place to place across the country. It was a very useful skill; he could go to any city or town in an instant, and though he couldn't go through locked doors, he could still enter any building if it had an unlocked door within it. He got everything he needed this way, by stealing food and clothes and such from rich people.

On one such expedition, he walked through the pantry door of a big house in Marseilles, a little after midnight. He looked around outside of the pantry, but all was quiet. No one was awake. He started filling the sack he brought with him with all the food he would need to last him another week or so.

When his sack was full, he walked out to find an extra jacket or blanket or something, since winter was approaching, and came face to face with someone who appeared to be the daughter of those who owned the house, with long blond hair tied up and an armful of clothing. Grantaire was pretty sure that he saw a pair of pants and a men's jacket in there.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?" the person he would later know as Enjolras demanded, sounding fierce though she looked so young and defenseless in her white nightdress.

"Uh..." Grantaire said, standing frozen.

"What's in that bag? Are you a thief?!"

Grantaire had no answer to that, terrified that the teenager in front of him would call for help and get him arrested. Enjolras reached out to snatch the bag, shifting the clothes she was holding to under her elbow in order to open it.

"This is... just food."

"Please don't shout for help, Mademoiselle" Grantaire said, finally managing to get his voice to work.

Enjolras flinched. "I won't," she said, gaving back the sack. "Take this and go."

"So when I run, I'll get a harsher punishment?" Grantaire asked suspiciously.

Enjolras frowned. "That doesn't even make sense. You think that you being here, in the house of the respected M. Enjolras in the middle of the night wouldn't get you a bad enough sentence? And the one who stumbled upon you, me, is an _innocent young girl_ who could have been _horribly harmed_ by a burglar like you?"

Grantaire wasn't sure if the Enjolras child meant to do it, but the last sentence sounded so sarcastic to him, as if Enjolras didn't think what the hypothetical authorities would say was at all correct. He couldn't help but say, "You think I can't hurt you?"

"Well, sure, but you know I'll scream if you do, and you'll never get away before someone comes. Plus you're not a bad person who hurts innocents."

"How do you figure?"

"You're only stealing food," Enjolras explained. "There's valuable trinkets all around this house; you must have seen them when you came in. If you wanted money, you would have seen them and taken them. But you didn't. You're just trying to live."

Grantaire didn't point out that Enjolras didn't seem very scared of him when she took his bag, before she opened it to find the food. He didn't say that since he appeared right in the pantry of the house without going through the rest of it, he hadn't seen any valuable items, and he might have taken them if he had. He didn't say that he actually could live without stealing, as his parents were still alive and would probably take him back if he changed everything about himself, including his magic, personality, and path in life.

"People need money to live too, you know. If I had taken them, that doesn't necessarily make me an greedy villain," Grantaire did say.

"That's true," Enjolras conceded, "But since you didn't, it doesn't matter either way. You're not going to hurt me, and I'm not going to turn you in."

Grantaire should have gone, immediately, before Enjolras changed her mind, thankful of what he had gotten away with. But though he knew it was better to be suspicious of everybody and not question his blessings, he knew that Enjolras would let him go, just as much as Enjolras knew that she had nothing to fear. So he stayed to ask: "But why?"

"Because you need it more than we do. And it's not fair that we live in a society that forces people to have to take things from others just to survive."

 _Whoever the Enjolrases are_ , Grantaire thought, _they're probably despairing over the unapologetically liberal views of their daughter. She's clearly too outspoken and a bit of a trouble maker to be ladylike._

"Will you get in trouble if the food's gone?"

"Why would I be blamed?" Enjolras asked.

"Because you're very obviously not an 'innocent young girl,' and I'm sure everyone in this household knows it. I have a feeling that you break the rules often enough that you're a suspect whenever something happens. You don't act like how rich girls are supposed to act, _Mademoiselle Enjolras_ ," Grantaire concluded sarcastically.

Enjolras flinched again. "Why do you think that?" Enjolras said offendedly. "You don't even know me! And why do you care?"

"I don't care. But it's obvious you break rules when you're letting me go like this. Plus you were sneaking out of the house."

"I was not!"

"So you're just creeping down here, carrying outside clothes in the middle of the night when everybody else is sleeping because...?"

"Just get out of here," Enjolras said, sounding vaguely annoyed.

Grantaire grinned and left, through the front door this time.

Over the next three years, Grantaire found his way into and out of an apprenticeship with a painter called Gros, and moved to Paris, making just enough money to survive, though through more legal ways than before.

He was entering a cafe, planning on spending some time relaxing, when he saw Enjolras for the second time. As soon as he walked in, he knew that it wouldn't be a good place for quiet, contemplative thinking and drinking. There was a man giving a speech, some Republican stuff that Grantaire didn't care very much about. Still, there was a quality in his voice, or something about his posture, or maybe the ferocious expression that caught Grantaire's attention, and made him stay and listen for a moment. Not because the content of the speech, but for the sound of the words themselves, flowing smoothly from the man's lips.

It took him a few minutes before he realized that the speaker was the Enjolras child who let him go before, looking far more handsome and comfortable in men's clothes than the child was in that nightgown. Grantaire said nothing, and Enjolras didn't notice him, but he made sure to remember to come to this cafe more in hopes of spotting this speaker again.

Before two weeks passed, Grantaire learned that some of the crowd of listeners he had seen at the cafe on the first day formed a little revolutionary club with Enjolras called Les Amis de l'ABC. By the time they were banned from the cafe for their too radical talk, he knew them well enough to follow them to a more secret meeting place in the backroom of the Musain. There, with less outsiders and bystanders, was where Enjolras recognized him. Grantaire was sure that Enjolras had at least glimpsed him before then, but since he had made no special effort to draw attention to himself, he was not noticed.

During the first meeting at the Musain, Enjolras approached him. "Hello, citizen. I am Enjolras, the elected leader of Les Amis de l'ABC. What brings you to this—" Enjolras stopped abruptly.

"Nice to meet you again," Grantaire said awkwardly.

"What are you doing here?" Enjolras hissed, an echo of their previous encounter.

"Supporting your cause, of course. And spending time with my new and very good friend, Laigle," Grantaire said. He did not say that he was really there because Enjolras enraptured him, and he had met Laigle at an earlier meeting that he had only been at to see Enjolras. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Enjolras glared at him, but Grantaire could recognize that it was fear, more than anger or annoyance, that caused it. And he couldn't really blame Enjolras for that.

Someone called the meeting to a start, so Enjolras only said, "I beg you, please do not tell _anyone_."

And Grantaire, who never had any intention of doing so, didn't.

When the official part of the meeting was finished, and everybody broke into smaller groups of conversation, Enjolras went up to Grantaire. "Come with me. We need to talk privately."

Grantaire followed along to Enjolras's apartment without protest, knowing that it would be the only way to reassure Enjolras that he would never speak of their first meeting.

"I can explain," Enjolras said, once they were safely inside the rooms.

It was clear from the tone of voice, that Enjolras could not explain but was desperate enough to try, to say anything to convince Grantaire to keep the secret.

"You don't have to," Grantaire said. "It's not really my business why you do what you do with your life."

" _No one_ can ever think that I am anything but a man," Enjolras insisted. "I _am_ a man, understand?"

"Yes," Grantaire agreed. With the clear desperation and Enjolras's interesting phrasing, Grantaire knew that even if he had planned on telling anyone, he certainly wouldn't now. He liked Enjolras too much, despite their limited interactions, and his plea tugged at Grantaire's heart. He would do just about anything to vanquish the fear in Enjolras's voice. "I won't tell anyone."

"That's it?"

Grantaire shrugged. "I guess."

"Why are you agreeing so easily?" Enjolras demanded. "There is nothing to gain by keeping this to yourself! Surely, you must disapprove? You must be—"

"I am not lying," Grantaire said, remembering his own suspicion when Enjolras gave him the food. "And I have nothing to lose from keeping this to myself either. There is nothing worth disapproving of. I will admit that I think it is dangerous and easier to not do that, but people do things that are risky and that I don't understand all the time without me trying to stop them. I hardly have any intentions of telling anyone about your treasonous plots for revolution either. And you kept silent once for me."

"But that was different..." Enjolras protested.

"Are you _trying_ to convince me to tell others?"

"No..." Enjolras muttered.

Grantaire continued. "You once told me that you knew I was not dangerous, that I would not harm an innocent. Do you still believe that? I'm not asking you to trust me, just to believe my promise."

Enjolras looked at him for a long time, and Grantaire could sense the shift in his mindset. "I believe you."

"Thank you," Grantaire said, because he didn't know what else to say.

They didn't speak very much after that, and Grantaire couldn't shake off the feeling that despite saying otherwise, Enjolras didn't trust him very much for months. Only after a long while with no whispers being spread, did he seem to grow less on edge around Grantaire.


	6. The Thousandth Time

Grantaire relives the same day over and over and over

...

Grantaire has died a thousand times in a thousand ways in a thousand universes. No two deaths are the same. Sometimes, it is he who has changed, some new ability, or knowledge, or personality trait that he didn't have before, there for one lifetime only before it disappears or becomes irrelevant. Other times, it's the circumstances, the world around him that's changed, people in different positions, or a changed setting. Always, he dies a different way.

It must have started somewhere, this morbid cycle, but he hardly remembers how. Paris, France, June, 1832. He knows that much, but it is more because he remembers his life from before it all started. He cannot recall his original death.

There was pride, when it happened, he is sure. That seems to be a reoccurring theme, though when repeated as many times as it is, in so many deaths, it has worn more than a little thin. It must have felt like one last blaze of glory, a complete finale, something worthwhile to tie up the mess that is his life, he imagines, because it makes for a satisfying ending.

Except that it wasn't the end. It goes on, and on, and on, though not cyclical in nature, exactly. Grantaire imagines a thousand strings lying side by side, and that each is its own universe. They are separate but similar, and he is being pushed from one to the next, onto eternity, going back to that one point with a thousand variations.

He has been in the future, and in the past, and lands of magic, and places with technology beyond imagination, and worlds outside of any recognition. Yet always, there are his friends, Les Amis (though they are not always called that), fighting for freedom and justice. And always, burning and bright, is Enjolras.

Their relationship ranges from hate to love and everything that is in between and beyond. Grantaire doesn't share many interactions with Enjolras, most of the time, but he always knows how he feels about him. Somewhere in his mind, the part that belongs to the different version of Grantaire whose mind he has hijacked, the one that belongs in that universe he briefly is in, the knowledge is always there.

Every time, after his previous death, Grantaire wakes up. He is always sleeping during the fight for some reason. Every time, some way or another, he is killed. And every time, it is somehow for or with Enjolras. And then it starts again.

He is so tired. He is exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with mental or physical weariness. Those renew. His emotional well-being does not. He has lived through, what is at the core of it, the same day countless times. He has died more times than there are stars in the sky, yet there is no end.

This time, he wakes up, like every other time, and it looks like it is the 19th century French barricades again. Sometimes, he has more time before his death than others, but this is not one of those times.

Enjolras is there, in front of him, and the guards are asking their familiar questions, and Grantaire, who is worn out from the repetition, wonders if he could stop this pattern, break free from this cycle.

He has tried before, of course, by fighting to try and win the revolution, but it is always hopeless and he always fails. He has tried leaving his friends behind to save himself, but always, there is some sort of obstacle, shoving him back into place, and nothing is changed.

If he tries to escape, he spots his friends being dragged off and tortured, or soldiers slaughtering bystanders, or some other thing that he can't turn his back on. It works because this is all real. Every single time in every single universe. Grantaire knows it with a certainty that he can't explain, but he thinks comes from the feeling of being only a visitor in each body; there is another Grantaire with a slightly differently life that he has merged with. He can't let someone be hurt, because each person is _real_.

Most of the time, he can't even convince himself to leave them behind. It wouldn't be fair to the Grantaire that truly belongs in that universe, to make him be so cruelly uncaring. Things always become worse when he tries to fight it—the people around him have more painful deaths, or die when they might have survived, or civilians get involved (and when did he start using that term, 'civilian,' as if he were a soldier?)—and so he usually doesn't.

But now, he is so tired. He isn't trying to break the cycle of things, or make meaningful change, or smash expectations. He simply gives up.

Grantaire doesn't raise his head. He doesn't proclaim his support for the republic or ask Enjolras to die by his side. He doesn't move or even open his eyes.

It's a mistake, he knows, but he is too done with everything to care. Somewhere, out all of the timelines in which Enjolras dies, Grantaire is there and he doesn't do a thing.

A thousand deaths ago, he wouldn't believe that there could be a time where his apathy goes this far. But here he is. And in this one universe, Enjolras dies, and Grantaire can't even bring himself to watch.

"Is he asleep or dead?" a person says some time later.

"Better be sure," another says, hateful cruelty in his voice.

Perhaps it is because he gave up, and wasn't trying to fight the cycle that it works. But for once, Enjolras cannot be somehow involved in his death. For once, something that has always stayed the same has changed. It doesn't feel triumphant though, and Grantaire already regrets his decision, though he cannot summon enough energy to truly wish it had gone differently. But even though this is only one universe out of millions, it still feels like failure.

A bayonet is thrusted, and Grantaire ceases to live in hollow victory.


	7. Day Embraces Night

Happy Barricade Day!

There's a quote in one of Enjolras's speeches that really foreshadows his death scene with Grantaire. I took the scene and tried to match it to the quote.

...

"Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction between those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is made neither of paving-stones, nor of timbers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Here misery meets ideal. Here day embraces night and says to it: "I am going to die with you and you will be reborn with me." From the embrace of all desolations, faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring here their agony, and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality will join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb flooded with the dawn."

...

Grantaire approaches the door that leads to the stairs of the Corinthe. He isn't sure what he's trying to do, whether he want to fight for the barricades or to get a better view of its fall. Maybe it's only that he doesn't want to stay inside this room when the world is falling apart downstairs. His hand hovers over the doorknob, still unready to face the carnage that he knows will be outside.

To his surprise, the door swings out just before he can push, and he stumbles right into the path of Enjolras.

"Grantaire!" Enjolras exclaims, but he does not let his shock waste anytime in pushing them both from the doorway and pulling the door shut.

"What's going on?" Grantaire asks.

"Our side is losing," Enjolras says. He doesn't sound angry at Grantaire, like he did earlier, or particularly defeated. Still, Grantaire knows that it must be bad for Enjolras to have retreated up here instead of being down there fighting. He sounds weary, more than in a sleep-deprived way, though there is still strength in his voice. "And now we are trapped here."

Grantaire spins around in a circle, quickly scanning the room for anything that could be used as a weapon.

"If we could fight our way past the guards, we could escape," he says desperately. "I know some back ways; we could make it out, maybe..." There's the tiny table he had been sleeping at, too tiny to be taken to construct the barricade. Its legs could be used as clubs, perhaps. That wouldn't be effective against bullets, but maybe with an element of surprise, it could do damage.

"Grantaire."

"Could we use the tabletop as a shield? Come, help me take off its legs. If we hurry—"

But Enjolras shakes his head. "It's no use, Grantaire."

Caught off guard, Grantaire can't help but startle. The Enjolras he is familiar with would not give up with so little fight, nor ever talk to him in this wistful, gentle way. But if Enjolras is unwilling to try, Grantaire must step up. He looks to the window, wondering if there is a way out through there.

"There are too many soldiers outside," Enjolras says.

"But-" They can find a way if they try, there's always some unexpected way out. Could they talk to the soldiers? Enjolras could convince anyone of anything, given time. Do they have anything to bribe the soldiers with? Money? There's some in his apartment, but not a lot. And what about—

"Grantaire." Enjolras touches his shoulder.

He pauses, his whirling mind slowing. Instead of searching for some other way out, he stares at Enjolras, properly taking in the man for the first time that day. Enjolras smiles with a certain sad fondness, as if he admires Grantaire's determination and effort, but knows that the situation is hopeless. It is that look, more than anything, that stops him.

So Grantaire says, "Why aren't you upset about this?"

"I am," Enjolras answers, "but I have faith that the ideals behind this won't die, even if we do. For these ideas are immortal and will continue to be thought, and the sufferings of the people will be no less agonizing. There will be both goal and motivation. I think that perhaps we pushed revolution too soon, and the people were not quite ready for this yet. Maybe it is better this way; our deaths will spark the continuation of a more gradual, natural change, where we will achieve liberty and equality without killing our fellow countrymen, our brothers."

"You have changed," Grantaire says, because now it is undeniable, and he is unable to chalk the strangeness of it to the unusual circumstances.

"Indeed. I had not fully realized how awful it is, slaughtering those who should be one of us. There is no glory in a fight against one's people, as born from necessity as it might be. Even in the July Revolution, I was not impacted this way. This barricade has caused a shift in my perspective and given birth to many ideas."

"And many sorrows as well," Grantaire says, because it is in his nature to be contrary. But he does not disagree. Even asleep for most of the time, the barricades twist and clarify, shining light in places he had not known existed in his own mind. "But I have had time for contemplation as well. And though perhaps this bloodshed should bring me despair, I find that in my odd, barricade-induced state, it is inspiring. All of your willingness to do whatever it takes. I do believe that your dreams and causes are not so far-fetched and worthless as I once thought. Maybe I only told myself that nothing could ever change because I did not want my friends to die in the changing of it, but now, it is too late for that."

"I am glad that you have proven my earlier harsh words wrong," Enjolras says. "And I offer my most sincere apologies for them. It was never true or deserved."

"I was causing trouble in a stressful time. I forgive you. But I fear that I shall soon prove your point of how I was incapable of dying untrue soon, if there is truly no way out. Where is everyone?"

"Dead, or soon to be. A few came up here with me and destroyed the staircase behind us so we could not be followed. But I alone survived the bullets."

"They are already coming up to this floor," Grantaire says, hearing the noise approach. He grabs the chair and table he had slept at, stacking them on top of each other in front of the door.

"That will not hold them long," Enjolras says. "The door swings out the other way."

Panicked, Grantaire quickly locks the flimsy latch, just as he feels someone on the other side try to pull the door open.

"That will only delay them a little longer."

"Then I will savour these precious few seconds," Grantaire says. "May I ask you one last request?"

"Anything. Though I hardly recall anything else you have asked of me that would cause you to say one _last_ request."

"Might I die by your side?" Grantaire isn't asking for permission to die, or even his location of death. It's something deeper. It's _Can I stand as your equal, here in our last moments?_ Because all the devoted worshipfulness that he had once idealized Enjolras with has vanished with his newfound clarity. He will never think himself as a better person than Enjolras, but he knows that they are both people, both mortal humans that change and grow and make mistakes. They are not two impossibly distant beings, but two different points along the same continuum. His question means _Will you allow me to die in the name of, and for the sake of, your cause, which I have mocked for so long and even now, don't respect it in quite the way that perhaps you think I should?_ It means _Can you accept me and believe in me with your final breath?_

"Yes," Enjolras says simply, and he understands all that Grantaire means behind his question. It is a quiet agreement, almost buried under the pounding of the soldiers, yet it is the most powerful word Grantaire has ever heard.

Enjolras takes a sudden step forward, a face filled with despair and hope, and folds his arms around Grantaire, just as the door breaks open.

"We will die here together, and the future will be grand," Enjolras whispers. The unexpectedness of the embrace, considering the years of conflict between the two, and the passion in Enjolras's voice gives Grantaire a single moment of wild, impossible faith in the future.

Grantaire gives Enjolras one last look, difficult as it is, with their faces so close that their unruly hair, golden and black, like day and night, overlap and intertwine. He tries to convey everything with that look. That he doesn't believe in hope the way Enjolras does, that he never can, but that he's realized it's not something to give up on entirely. Enjolras understands, he thinks. It's in the way he gazes back, a look that shows a softer compassion that would not have been seen on him before this barricade.

Their embrace is not finished when the report sounds.

...

At that moment, somewhere nearby, a pair of twins begin to be born. They have neither the bright hair of a world engulfed in scorching sunlight, nor the dark hair of the void between stars. Instead, it is a neutral, peaceful sort of brown, like kindling for a fire, but also of sturdy earth.

Their lives are not exceptional ones, but neither are they empty. They grow and learn and fight, but more with words and ideals than guns. They differ on many things, but their core beliefs are the same. They are separate people, with separate thoughts, and separate goals, and separate fears, but in the end, they stay together and work together.

The world around them changes everyday, and the life they lead could not have been imagined a generation before. Their work impacts the world in a way that would have been impossible a century before. In this new, hopeful, imperfect era, everything seems possible.

They are reborn, in the radiance of the future.


End file.
